


Time Spent

by likehandlingroses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 17:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, George and Percy find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to navigate the ice between them.





	Time Spent

George scribbled out the sentence he’d been working on and tossed the parchment to the side--the third piece in a row. He’d always been rubbish at writing, and yet no one had considered that when they all insisted that of course he should speak at Fred’s memorial service.

If he was up for it, _of course_. Kid gloves, all the time now. Like he’d fall apart at the slightest touch. _Him._

George hated being treated like he was broken, almost as much as he hated feeling broken.

A tap on the half-open door signalled Percy’s entrance. He’d been staying at home as well, since the battle, though George hardly saw him. According to Ginny, he stayed up in his room even more than George did.

“Only talks to Mum and Dad, really,” she’d told him. “Though I suppose when you’ve been away for so long, we start to look like a lot to take in at once.”

But Percy had always been that way. Mum and Dad’s favorite, their third pair of eyes. Of course he been eager to reestablish his position; clearly Mum had been just as eager to recruit him again: George supposed it was Percy’s turn to try and get him to eat, judging by the plate of toast in his hand.

“Not hungry,” George said, hardly looking up.

“I’ll leave it, then,” Percy said, moving towards the bedside table that Fred had always used.

“I said I didn’t want it,” George snapped, looking up at Percy, who set the plate down anyway.

“You might later.”

“Because toast always is more appetizing after it’s gone cold.”

“Fine.” Percy’s voice carried a thinly veiled edge to it, and George scowled. He returned to his parchment, only to realize he’d scrambled up yet another sentence. It would take ages to copy it all out again.

“Damn it…” he murmured, reaching for another piece.

“What are you doing?” Percy asked from the doorway. The sharpness in his voice was gone, and though George’s first inclination was to tell Percy it was none of his business, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Can I help?” Percy prompted, having clearly picked up on the reason for George’s project.

“Everyone has been trying since I was small, and I still can’t write for anything, so not likely,” George grumbled.

Percy considered the situation for a moment, then said:

“What if you talk it through, instead of writing it? I can copy it down for you, if you’d like.”

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, George shrugged and let Percy sit beside him. He didn’t especially want Percy to hear him struggle through what he wanted to say, but—he reasoned—Percy would hear the finished product either way, and if there was anyone who could make sure he didn’t go and make a fool of himself, it was Percy, who could turn a phrase better than anyone George knew.

Besides, Percy had offered to help in a voice wholly devoid of that cloying, half-whispered tone that George so hated. Positive reinforcement and all that, George supposed.

So he lay back onto his pillow, closed his eyes, and pretended he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. In time, he forgot his insecurities and the words began to flow in earnest. It was easier, much easier, to sit back and let Percy fuss over the letters and punctuation and everything else. At one point, he even feared he was going too fast and apologized.

"No, I've gotten it,” Percy said.

But when George propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the parchment, it seemed all Percy had managed were incomprehensible scribbles, nothing like the even, careful letters he'd always (with a kind of envy) recognized as Percy's.

"It's shorthand," Percy explained, seeing the puzzled look on George's face. "You go back and write it all out later, but when you've got to keep pace with someone talking...well, it's easier this way, you see."

"If you say so...where do you learn to do that, anyway?"

"I taught myself, third year.”

Of course he had. Percy wasn’t happy unless he was working his head off. "Merlin…as if you hadn't had enough to get on with."

"Well, it's like anything else,” Percy said, and George could sense a lecture coming on. “You have to accept that it will slow you down before it’ll do any good. But once it becomes second nature, it's well worth the time spent...I'd never have gotten through NEWT-levels without it, especially History of Magic, with Binns rattling off dates by the second.”

In spite of himself, George smiled. It wasn’t so bad, Percy’s rambling. It had its charms, if you looked at it from the right angle. Perhaps he’d even missed it, after so many years of silence between them.

“You know, Penny didn't even take notes in that class?” Percy continued. “Just held it all in her head, same as Bill can. Photographic memory you know, I was always terribly jealous, but it's something you're born with.  I can't do it, not for the life of me, but shorthand works just as well, when it's all said and done, and then when I started taking dictation for…”

Percy turned red about the ears, and George’s stomach turned. How often had he fed his own anger and hurt by imagining how he’d make Percy squirm if he ever dared to show his face again? He could still remember how the thought had brought him a kind of twisted joy, though he now couldn’t imagine why.

“Well, it comes in handy for all sorts of things, anyway,” Percy murmured, and though he went to pick up his quill again, his hand was shaking.

“I reckon you’ll have an easier time with Kingsley,” George said, after a pause. “He’s always taking his time about things—careful with his words and all.”

Percy nodded, his fingers pressing against the shaft of the quill so tightly that his fingernails were turning white. He was afraid...of what? George didn’t want to think the answer was him, but there wasn’t anyone else around.

He didn’t need to be afraid, George wanted to say, but the words would have sounded strange, almost false. They weren’t the sort thing of thing George Weasley said to his brothers--any of them. But especially Percy. Percy the Prefect. Percy the Pinhead. Percy the Prat. Always a title, and often not a complimentary one.

He’d made Percy smaller, squeezed him so tightly into epithets and biting alliterations, that there wasn’t room for much else but fear. Tension. Tightening his fingers, his spine, his lips, his very speech...as if it would protect him.

And George hadn’t been able to read it, hadn’t comprehended what set his brother on edge, what made his words sharp and his eyes see past the top of George’s head.

Why hadn’t he? It was a feeling he knew well—the very same sense of shrinking into himself had happened to him every time Percy had rolled his shoulders back and looked at George as though he existed for the sheer purpose of causing trouble. How much had it hurt him to notice that, as they grew older, the only time Percy bothered to speak to him was to tell him he was doing something wrong?

Who had started it? Where had the diminishment begun, and why? George wasn’t sure; he couldn’t remember. Fred might have known—he remembered everything. Not words or facts, like Bill did. But images, moments...Fred noticed everything.

Had. He _had_ noticed everything. Or perhaps he still did, somewhere. More than he ever had before. Maybe he even knew a way out of the tangle his two brothers had found themselves in—two emotionally graceless, clumsy boys, on unsteady ground.

_So lay a stone._

“You should say something as well,” George said, suddenly. “At the...you should give a speech.”

To his surprise, the words only made Percy tense up further. 

“I couldn’t,” he said, his voice strangled.

“Why not?”

“It’s not right,” Percy said. “Everyone knows what happened...with me, and I—”

“—oh, don’t be daft,” George said, sitting up properly. “No one who matters is going to care.”

“But people _will_ care.” Percy’s voice, so warm and alive a moment ago, had turned stiff. “And those people will turn the whole thing into a circus.”

“Let them.”

Percy shook his head, and George felt an anger rising in his chest. What right did he have to be afraid, after everything that had happened?

“You think they’re not going to talk about all of us? That you’re the only one with a story the _Prophet_ will try and sell? How entirely unoriginal of you.”

“I never said—”

“—you think I want to go up there and speak?” George’s voice was getting louder, and he knew his face was turning red. “George Weasley, missing an ear and missing his twin? You think they won’t dig into that bit of tragedy? Not that it’s a contest, but I’d imagine I’ll take top billing, don’t you think?”

Percy blinked. “I’m not suggesting—”

“—you don’t want anyone talking poorly about you, that’s what it is. Because somehow, you’ve managed to figure that Fred’s service is about you and your reputation,” George sneered. “How fucking big of you, to step down so you’re not a distraction.”

Percy stared down at the parchment, his lips set in a line that quivered ever so slightly, and George knew he’d gone too far. He shook his head, though he knew Percy couldn’t see him, was doing his best impression of a blind, mute, invisible entity.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” George murmured, finally.

“I shouldn’t have spent so long being such a poor excuse for a brother,” Percy said without hesitation, and with a force that made George sit up straighter. Percy looked at him then, with wide eyes.

“We should have gotten on...we could have gotten on,” he continued. “And I’m sorry we didn’t. That I didn’t do more.”

With an ease that he hadn’t known himself capable of, George forgave him in his heart. The words...they would take longer.

“Yeah, well, we were…” he shrugged. “I know we didn’t help it along much.”

That didn’t nearly cover it, but it was a start, anyway.

“It’s not them I’m worried about. Other people,” Percy said, after a pause, and it took George a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. “It's just...if I speak, it feels like pretending that I was here, and I wasn’t.”

“You were right there, Perce,” George said. “I know what happened—Ron told me.”

“That doesn’t change—”

“—he loved you, you know?” The words sat in the room, and Percy’s shoulders lost some of their tension. He was still afraid, but he understood. 

“We’ll go up together, how’s that?” George said. “Give them a two for one photo, huh?”

He grinned, but Percy didn’t return the gesture. He seemed suddenly quite tired.

“It’ll be easier for me, too, not being alone,” George admitted. Percy looked at him, a new resolve in his eyes.

“If it’ll help…”

“—I’ve just said it would.”

Percy nodded, and George knew without asking that he’d be there.

  
  



End file.
